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Armed Conflict is a contested incompatibility

Armed violence can be described
as: “the intentional use of illegitimate
force (actual or threatened) with arms or explosives, against a person, group,
community or state, which undermines people centred security and/or sustainable
development.”

The International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) proposed a general definition of
international armed conflict. In the Tadic case, the Tribunal stated that
"an armed conflict exists whenever
there is a resort to armed force between States" [ICTY, The Prosecutor
v. Dusko Tadic, Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on
Jurisdiction, IT-94-1-A, 2 October 1995, Para 70].

An armed conflict is a contested
incompatibility which concerns government and/or territory where the use of
armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a
state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths.[Wallensteen, Peter, and
Margareta Sollenberg, Armed Conflict and Regional Conflict Complexes, 1989-97,
Journal of Peace Research, vol. 35, no. 5, 1998, pp.621-634; The Conflict Data
Project, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden]

The separate elements of the
definition are operationalised as follows:

(1) Use of armed force: use of
arms in order to promote the parties’ general position in the conflict,
resulting in deaths. Arms: any material means, e.g. manufactured weapons but
also sticks, stones, fire, water, etc.

(2) 25 deaths: a minimum of 25
battle-related deaths per year and per incompatibility.

(3) Party: a government of a
state or any opposition organisation or alliance of opposition organisations.

·Government: the party controlling the capital of
the state.

·Opposition organisation: any non-governmental
group of people having announced a name for their group and using armed force.

(4) State: a state is

·an internationally recognized sovereign
government controlling a specified territory, or

·an internationally unrecognised government
controlling a specified territory whose sovereignty is not disputed by another
internationally recognised sovereign government previously controlling the same
territory.

(5) Incompatibility concerning
government and/or territory the incompatibility, as stated by the parties, must
concern government and/or territory.

·Incompatibility: the stated generally
incompatible positions.

·Incompatibility concerning government:
incompatibility concerning type of political system, the replacement of the
central government or the change of its composition.

·Incompatibility concerning territory:
incompatibility concerning the status of a territory, e.g. the change of the
state in control of a certain territory (interstate conflict), secession or
autonomy (intrastate conflict).

According to D. Schindler, "the existence of an armed conflict within
the meaning of Article 2 common to the Geneva Conventions can always be assumed
when parts of the armed forces of two States clash with each other. […] Any
kind of use of arms between two States brings the Conventions into effect”.

Terms such as ‘civil wars’ and
‘ethnic conflict’ quickly came into use in the 1990s as shorthand descriptors
for the armed conflicts in Africa, Asia and Europe. Such terms reinforced the
common view that these were mainly intra-state affairs that were triggered and
fuelled by virulent ethno-nationalism. However, in most cases, these conflicts
involved regional actors and trans-border activities, and were driven by a mix
of factors and not simply ethnic difference.